


The Test

by khazadqueen (ama)



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Blind Character, Blind Thranduil, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Good Dad Thranduil, Mirkwood, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 06:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/khazadqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once a year, Thranduil sparred with his children and his chiefs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Test

**Author's Note:**

> based on a tumblr prompt from ivyadrena, who requested something with Thranduil's sons/Mirkwood warriors learning to fight while blindfolded.

Legolas breathed in deeply through his nose and instantly felt calmness seep into his veins. It was autumn. The air smelled of rotting leaves and dropped fruit, and soft squelching mud and fresh rain. He was standing in the clearing used for drill fighting, so beneath that was the soft tang of metal and—very, very faintly—sweat and blood. The woods were never silent, and it was more difficult to register all the myriad chirps and cracks and thuds, but together with his sense of smell he could isolate the ource of one sound. Breathing. For a moment that last seconds, minutes, conceivably half an hour, for time was of no concern to them, the figure was motionless.

A soft hitch of breath—the rustle of fabric—and the clearing was split by the deafening sound of Legolas’s long white knife meeting his opponent’s sword.

He leapt back the moment he had deflected the blow, because long practice had taught him to take advantage of all the space he could get. He needed _time_ , all the time he could manage, to hear the footsteps and the shift of silk and the whistle of metal through the air, to tell him where the blade was coming from. Once he knew that, it became effortless. A hundred thousand times he had drilled the movements needed to defend and kill. He fought as easily as he breathed.

The match continued at a furious pace for some time. Then he deflected another strike and his opponent moved with it, his entire body twisting to follow the blade. This was Legolas’s chance. His heart leapt, and his shoulder collided with his opponent’s as he rolled over the other elf’s back, intending to strike his vulnerable left side—and then he froze.

There was a knife pressed against his neck.

“Dead,” Thranduil pronounced in a silky voice, and Legolas sighed as he removed his blindfold.

“A second blade,” he sighed. “I did not notice.”

“You should have,” the king reproached. He sheathed his sword and tossed the short knife to his son, who caught it by the hilt with a frown. “Tauriel did.”

“Tauriel told me she lost. Quickly.”

“She did, but she lost knowing that there was a second blade. She is not as adept at sensing movement; you have been practicing.”

Legolas smiled to himself as he and his father retired to the edge of the clearing, where wine and fresh bread were waiting. Thranduil had long ago dispensed with the irritation that was long and extended training sessions; if he wanted to fight, he fought alone. Twice a year he sparred with living beings. Once, in the autumn, with his children and his chiefs, to keep them on their toes. Once, in the winter, to remind his guards that he _could_. The demonstrations were always rather brief.

This time, though, Legolas sipped his wine and discreetly measured the angle of the sunlight. Even discounting the wait—which was designed to make him get bored and lose his guard, he was sure of it—he had lasted for longer than he expected. Twenty minutes, perhaps thirty. He wondered, with a bit of a smirk, if the knife had been introduced in order to expedite the process.

“How did Ithilcherdir fair?” he asked innocently, and his father smiled thinly.

“Do not tease your brother.”

“He yet prefers his books to his blades, then.”

“As he has for the last thousand years, and as you have taunted him for at least half that time.”

“I would not taunt him for reading if he were not so _dull_ about it,” Legolas muttered, and was delighted to see Thranduil’s lips twitch in response. His father _was_ in a good mood. “What about Belleryn?”

There was a long pause, and Thranduil sipped his wine slowly.

“Ten minutes.”

Legolas bit back his laugh of delight by taking a strategic gulp of wine, but he knew his father had heard it. He could not help himself. Of his three siblings, his sister was the closest in age and in temperament. Their eldest brother, Celebrannon, had sailed west many years ago, and Ithilcherdir made no secret about his distaste for battle; they did not really _count_. Belleryn was an awe-inspiring fighter and a skilled archer. She was more partial to sword- and knife-work, and he to archery, but it was a slim margin. If they sparred with blades, and both had their sight, Legolas would probably lose—but he had never beaten her at their father’s test before.

“You did well, ion,” the king said unexpectedly. “Very few could have fought so.”

“Thank you, ada,” Legolas said with a graceful bow. He hoped that the routine, courtly motion might temper some of the delight in his heart. He was not entirely sure that it had.

After a moment Thranduil stood, setting down his empty glass.

“I have other business to attend to, and I know you are eager to boast to your sister. Do not be so… obvious about it, will you?”

“No, father.”

The Elvenking strode through the clearing, his sightless eyes giving away nothing of what he thought—Legolas could only hope that he did not still dwell on that damned knife. Next year he would do better. For now, he sat and enjoyed the peace of the wood. He tilted his head up to gaze at the canopy above. The leaves were changing, and delicate sunlight filtered down like shafts of amber. He saw bunches of red berries, and slim golden leaves hanging to the branches by the thinnest of stems, and…

Death. Branches so rotted that they were held up only because they rested against healthier trees. Gaping maws in the trunks, filled with poisonous fungi. Dead, web-thin leaves resting against the corpses of birds in abandoned nests.

It was autumn. A time for sleep, and rest, and renewal. The prince of Mirkwood closed his eyes, and his heart ached. For the first time, he wondered what he was being trained for.


End file.
